KNOXVILLE, Tenn.- On September 14, 2017, Joshua Alan Belcher, 23, of Madisonville, Tenn., was sentenced by the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, Chief U.S. District Judge, to serve 151 months in prison for distributing and possessing child pornography. Following his release from prison, Belcher will be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years and required to register with the sex offender registry in any state in which he resides, works, or attends school.

Belcher pleaded guilty in January 2017 to federal charges stemming from his use of a peer-to-peer file sharing software to make child pornography available for downloading by others via the Internet. A search of his residence resulted in the seizure of evidence confirming that he had been distributing child pornography that he had accessed, downloaded, and stored on his computer.

This investigation was conducted by Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crime Against Children Task Force and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Morris represented the United States.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.